The Department of Homeland Security won’t rely solely on in-house methods to identify extremist threats on social media. Intelligence officer and initiative chief John Cohen advised the Wall Street Journal in an interview that Homeland Security is hiring firms to investigate social networks for indicators of impending terrorism and different extremist violence. The division had been finding out social media earlier than, however the exterior companions would assist “dramatically” develop these efforts, Cohen mentioned.
Murmurs of intensive social media scanning first surfaced in May, however there have been few particulars about how it will work. The rumors urged Homeland Security would give attention to alarming developments quite than particular person targets, similar to brewing extremist actions or threats in opposition to particular communities. The purpose is to catch the violent rhetoric behind occasions just like the January sixth Capitol riot, which Homeland Security did not anticipate regardless of mounting social media exercise.
One of the businesses concerned in discussions is Logically, a agency that makes use of a mixture of AI and human evaluation to trace on-line content material at a big scale. It was beforehand concerned in a authorities effort to battle voting misinformation, however right here might use publicly accessible social media to identify hassle.
Whether or not Homeland Security can handle privateness fears is one other matter. Cohen mentioned the division would not use firms to amass data it was restricted from seeing, and WSJ sources mentioned officers have been decided to guard civil liberties. Logically chief Lyric Jain mentioned his firm could not share private information for Americans with out courtroom orders.
Even so, there are issues Homeland Security might abuse this non-public evaluation. It might theoretically maintain on to content material and use the info to pursue unrelated felony instances or goal peaceable political dissent. That might chill free speech by making folks afraid to speak about sure topics in public channels, even when there are not any discussions of violent intentions.
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